Hany Besada

Fraught with violence, disease and poverty, Africa is traditionally observed by policymakers through a humanitarian lens. However, the continent’s emerging geo-strategic importance transcends such condescending colonial overtones to command the attention of the United States beyond the moral, humanitarian and security imperatives.

The international community’s strategy of indifference towards a resurgence of hostilities will hardly halt belligerent rhetoric and curb new turmoil in the Horn of Africa. Fiery oral exchanges and intemperate threats from both sides of the frail Ethiopian-Eritrean border have merely provoked an outpouring of emotionally charged language replete with plots of invasion and war-mongering.

In the past, ousted tyrants would expect to spend the rest of their waning years in comfortable exile, oblivious to the insidious reach of international law, tribunals and justice. This is slowly changing, however, as rampant corruption, plunder of mineral wealth and genocide with impunity has finally garnered the attention and ire of the world.

Despite an improvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) overall security situation; despite the formation of a transitional government from the main warring factions; and despite last year’s first multiparty elections since independence in 1960, peace and stability remain elusive, writes Hany Besada.

Nigerians go to the polls on April 21 to elect both a new president and National Assembly, in an election widely perceived as the most significant test for democracy in Africa’s most populous state and its leading oil exporter. For the first time in the turbulent history of West Africa’s pivotal state, one elected incumbent will be democratically succeeded by another.

There has never been a better time for Somalia’s leaders to use the opportunity given to them by recent events and establish the lasting peace that has eluded them for the past 16 years. The crushing defeat of forces loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts by the army of Somalia’s transitional federal government has paved the way for the establishment of Somalia’s first functioning central government.

On May 15 this year, the United States announced its long-anticipated decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Libya. This decision will pave the way for Libya’s removal from the US list of states sponsoring terrorism and harbouring terrorists — and benefit US foreign policy in the Middle East in the short to medium term.